Like the Manic's Nicky Wire, the Cooper Temple Clause are admirers of
the work of the poet Philip Larkin and the title of the long awaited follow
up to their debut "See This Through And Leave" is a line from one of Larkin's
poems. To follow up a successful and well received album is no easy task.
The pressure is on to satisfy the fans and hopefully keep the hard to please
music critics happy as well.

"New Toys" has gentle soothing keyboards and a nursery rhyme style structure.
The vocals are overlaid, but not in an obstructive nature, giving the piece
a natural ambience. TCTC don't forget their raucous rock n roll roots as
guitars crash in resembling in an unusual oddity, a bit like Mansun (RIP)
in their experimental "Six" phase. "Blind Pilots" is a realistic yet dark
love song with a lyrical edge veering towards the profound and meaningful.
It's cinematic in scope and rich in ambition making it quite sad, but certainly
memorable. "Music Box" has an unassuming quite intro, not dissimilar to
Radiohead's current appreciation of the obscure, painstakingly building
up the dramatic tension as the melody creeps in amongst the chaos of the
crashing guitars.

The band aren't afraid of accusations of pretension when "Written Apology"
clocks in at a progtastic ten minutes ten seconds. Self indulgent maybe,
but it's a curiously welcome idea. There's crooning and a swooning late
night, early morning ambience a plenty. The piano, acoustic guitar embrace
a deceiving easy listening quality a bit like Elbow with a technological
breakthrough. Then as if they've run out of ideas entirely fill the last
five minutes of the track with urgent synths, space age noise and an unprecedented
barrage of techno. Certainly different, that's for sure.

"Kick Up The Fire, And Let The Flames Break Loose" has the menace of
Massive Attack, the confidence of studio enhancement and leaps and bounds
of coherent ideas. It may lack the furious, frenetic pace of it's debut,
but as an unexpected and brave attempt at branching out into unfamiliar
territory TCTC have succeeded in making a complex and and commanding album.